This week’s featured link:
New flying out of Paine Field will ease commuting pain for many – Alaska Airlines Blog
Alaska has been trying to replicate its successful Pacific Northwest strategy down in California, but now it’s bringing something it learned in California back north. In California, Alaska has learned that serving secondary airports in major markets can work wonders. It’s now going to try that out in Seattle by starting 9 daily flights from Paine Field, the home of Boeing’s widebody assembly lines. We don’t know where the flights are going yet, but you’d think it may be a mix of leisure and business. I’m not very hopeful that this strategy will work from a business perspective.

Paine Field is just too close to Seattle at about 40 miles away (and anywhere from 45 minutes to 300 hours depending upon traffic). With only 9 flights to be spread out across multiple markets, it’s hard to imagine there being enough frequency to be able to lure the business traveler away from Seattle. Maybe the chance of flying from Paine can help cement loyalty to Alaska in that area, however, and keep people from defecting to Delta. It’s hard to know.

Leisure has a better shot. Maybe throw some airplanes into Hawai’i and see if you can pull people off Delta and Hawaiian. I’m not really convinced about this one, but I can see some reasons to try it strategically.

Two for the road:
Do Social Media Nightmares Really Mean the Airlines Are Out of Control? – Dallas Observer
Oh sure, plenty of people are opining about the airlines these days. But it’s not often you get to see Terry Maxon, former airlines reporter for the Dallas Morning News, come out of retirement to give his thoughts. There’s a lot of levity in here about the state of things today. While I don’t agree with the last paragraph that regulation is needed, it’s still a worthwhile read.

The terrifying untold story of QF72: What happens when ‘psycho’ automation leaves pilots powerless? – stuff
Remember when that Qantas A330 flipped out nearly a decade ago? Alright, you probably don’t, but the now-retired Captain of that flight is finally talking about what happened and it’s unnerving. The incident report came out long ago, so it’s not a surprise, but I think it’s always more jarring when you hear the human angle on the story.